The Universe Delivers

Say what you want, but I believe that if you really need something in your life, the universe delivers.I've been thinking, for at least a year now, that I need to begin a meditation practice to augment my yoga practice. My life is pretty busy, and work is sometimes chaotic. It's always helpful if you can find the calm in the middle of a storm.So when I bumped into my dear friend Jennifer last week and told her how much I wanted to learn to meditate, she asked, "what are you doing later?" Turns out, Jennifer wants to become a meditation teacher. And I became her first student.She came over, and as I fidgeted, checked my watched, (and almost checked my email), she made sure I found a comfortable seated position (for me, it's a chair). I was impressed by the care she took with this -- she takes meditation seriously. And so I told myself to slow down and pay attention to what she had say. She taught me a simple technique in which you count backwards from 50 by twos, with every exhale on the even count. At the count of 20, pause, and then switch to an in/out breath for each count. When you get to one, you then simply sit and breathe.What happened next was surprising and profound. I fell into such a deep state of relaxation, it was almost like falling into another reality. We sat only for ten minutes, but they were a great ten minutes. She asked me to do this every day, and so far, I have.What I'm after is learning to sit with what is, and not hide, turn away, or distract myself (People Magazine anyone?) We can fritter lifetimes away with distraction and I don't want to fritter mine.I'm off to the Yoga Journal Boston Conference, teaching a class with Bo Forbes on how yoga can help wake you up around what and how you eat. I say teach, but really, I'm there to learn. It's a Q&A -- I'll do the Q and Bo will do the A.